Conservatives launch final stages of their war on Earth

Commentary: Latest ‘Shock and Awe’ is precursor to our self-destruction

Seven years ago we said Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” was the best book on economics of the new century. America was at the peak of its power. Charging forth with a new battle cry, “Shock and Awe,” GOP President George W. Bush launched the $3 trillion Iraq War, the biggest foreign-policy blunder in American history. Since then, America has been declining from it’s peak.

But “Shock and Awe” has found new life, as the battle cry in a new war, and a far greater foreign-policy blunder for our great nation. This time the war is driven by a do-nothing, obstructionist, conservative GOP/tea party that has shifted the self-sabotaging “Disaster Capitalism” strategy, retargeting on a bigger enemy.

In Klein’s new work coming this fall, we’ll see “Disaster Capitalism’s” new enemy is not just one resource-rich nation like Iraq and its oil reserves, but the vast natural resources of the entire planet, water, food, energy, air, sunlight, everything for short-term profits. Now capitalists want to extract new wealth from all nations.

Yes, folks, the GOP conservatives are now in a war that is destroying the planet in order to protect their ideal of what the great conservative thought leader, Nobel economist Milton Friedman, author of “Capitalism and Freedom,” believed was essential for a healthy economy — an unregulated free market, where capitalists had unlimited access to the world’s natural resources for profit-making, regardless of the consequences to the planet, the climate, global warming. That strategy is self-destructive for America and the world.

Shock Doctrine II: Disaster Capitalism’s war against Planet Earth

“Shock and Awe?” Step back. The GOP conservatives “disaster capitalism” strategy is better understood in a broader historical context. It’s easy to miss the long view in today’s high-speed, short-attention-span world of Twitter-thinking in the elusive eternal now. We rarely step back, take a deep breath, to see the forest for the trees before we’re hit with more news and tweets overloading us with one new zeitgeist after another.

But if we do step back, we see the disaster capitalism strategy of GOP conservatives as part of a larger, longer picture once captured by Will Durant, America’s great historian, author of the 11-vol “Story of Civilization.” Durant tells us: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.” We are repeating that familiar pattern in history. And only “after centuries of chaos” can a world build “another civilization.”

Durant’s “Story of Civilization” took 40 years. Co-authored with his wife Ariel, it was finished in 1975. Here are seven stages that might serve as a chapter outline to bring “Civilization” into the 21st century as we wait for Klein’s update about how the “Shock and Awe” battle cry is working in capitalism’s new war to dominate Planet Earth.

Here are the seven stages, from Adam Smith’s “Moral Sentiments” to the end of this century, and the economic, cultural and moral decline of the American civilization:

1. Adam Smith’s Pure Capitalism 1776 to 1929

For the first 150 years after the signing the Declaration of Independence — which saw 57 wealthy landowners lead, take political responsibility, risk their fortunes, freedom, families and their lives for the common good — Adam Smith’s laissez-faire capitalism worked with a competitive spirit that fueled a healthy economy, created prosperity.

2. New Deal Keynesian Social Capitalism 1930s-1980s

Conservative Times of London columnist Anatole Kaletsky calls this era “New Deal Keynesian Social Capitalism,” with government stimulating the economy after the 1929 Crash though the ‘30s. Private enterprise failed. Capitalism’s bubble popped. Government primed the pump with jobs, money, credit, regulation. But the GOP hates social capitalism.

3. Reaganomics adds fuel to new Disaster Capitalism 1980-2010

The “Great Society” triggered a huge conservative backlash. Economist Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” attacked Social Security. His free-market ideology reinforced Reaganomics, conservative philosopher Ayn Rand, Fed boss Alan Greenspan, even Bill Clinton, all were part of an ideological conspiracy that deregulated Wall Street, led to today’s multitrillion global derivative trading casino and a shadow banking system, the root cause of the 2008 meltdown. And now setting up a bigger catastrophe.

4. Obama’s revival of Keynesian Social Capitalism 2008-2016

Friedman’s “Disaster Capitalism” peaked under Bush, adding trillions of new debt to pay for two costly wars, huge tax cuts and an increasingly privatized government. All of which helped build China as a powerful new rival. Even Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman warns “his GOP has destroyed the American economy.” Then, the GOP told the world their No. 1 strategy was to destroy Obama’s presidency, yet another bizarre exercise of their self-destructive “Disaster Capitalism.”

5. New GOP/tea party Self-Destruction Capitalism 2008-2016

The plot got more dangerous as the tea party merged with the GOP and together undermined the recovery since the 2008 Wall Street credit crash, and paradoxically paved the way for the rise of a new powerful China as the Iraq War depleted America’s Treasury. Now the GOP is in a double bind that’s guaranteed to implode and self-destruct, bringing down the GOP, the presidency, the economy and the very nation they want to rule.

6. New State Capitalism: China and global authoritarianism (2003+)

In “Every Nation for Itself” and “The End of the Free Market,” Ian Bremmer warns of the rise of “state capitalism.” Nations manipulating markets, competing as capitalists. State corporations fronting for the political agendas of our enemies, destroying competition, making a mockery of “free markets,” while our politicians engage in petty domestic self-sabotaging games. China’s currency manipulation; control of 97% of the world’s rare-earth markets; acquisition of commodities and mining rights worldwide, hoarding foreign agriculture lands and corporate equities. While the myopic do-nothing strategies of the GOP/tea party undermine America’s power, China and other state-capitalist nations get more and more powerful.

7. Pentagon Capitalism: Wars and generals run America by 2020

Back in 2003, the Bush Pentagon warned that WWIII will arrive by 2020. Led by commander-in-chief Bush, their battle cry, “Shock and Awe,” announced the beginning of the end, although GOP neocon warhawks loved it, then and now. Now the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. Today, the do-nothing GOP/tea party, lacking any coherent long-term strategy for the country, other than obstructionism, will, by default, fulfill the Pentagon’s 2020 prophecy: that “as the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would emerge ... warfare is defining human life.” And that war is the one now known as “Shock and Awe 2: Disaster Capitalism vs. Planet-Earth” ... and the end of world history by end of this century.

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